The proliferation and popularity of mobile radio and telephony applications has led to market demand for communication systems with low cost, low power, and small form-factor radio-frequency (RF) transceivers. As a result, recent research has focused on providing monolithic transceivers using low-cost complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Current research has focused on providing an RF transceiver within a single integrated circuit (IC). For discussions of the research efforts and the issues surrounding the integration of RF transceivers, see Jacques C. Rudell et al., Recent Developments in High Integration Multi-Standard CMOS Transceivers for Personal Communication Systems, INVITED PAPER AT THE 1998 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LOW POWER ELECTRONICS, MONTEREY, Calif.; Asad A. Abidi, CMOS Wireless Transceivers: The New Wave, IEEE COMMUNICATIONS MAG., August 1999, at 119; Jan Crols & Michael S. J. Steyaert, 45 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—II: ANALOG AND DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING 269 (1998); and Jacques C. Rudell et al., A 1.9-GHz Wide-Band IF Double Conversion CMOS Receiver for Cordless Telephone Applications, 32 IEEE J. OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS 2071 (1997), all incorporated by reference here in their entireties.
The integration of transceiver circuits is not a trivial problem, as it must take into account the requirements of the transceiver's circuitry and the communication standards governing the transceiver's operation. From the perspective of the transceiver's circuitry, RF transceivers typically include sensitive components susceptible to noise and interference with one another and with external sources. Integrating the transceiver's circuitry into one integrated circuit would exacerbate interference among the various blocks of the transceiver's circuitry. Moreover, communication standards governing RF transceiver operation outline a set of requirements for noise, inter-modulation, blocking performance, output power, and spectral emission of the transceiver. Unfortunately, no method for addressing all of the above issues in high-performance RF receivers or transceivers, for example, RF transceivers used in cellular and telephony applications, has been developed. A need therefore exists for techniques of partitioning and integrating RF receivers or transceivers that would provide low-cost, low form-factor RF transceivers for high-performance applications, for example, in cellular handsets.